TIVERTON — Dollar General will open a store at 567 Main Road in November, with a grand opening planned for December.

Dan MacDonald, a spokesman for the chain, confirmed the company would open its first store in Rhode Island in the 8,200-square-foot building formerly occupied by Brooks Pharmacy.

“They have not put shovels into the ground yet, but we are going ahead with this,” MacDonald said. “We have a couple of stores planned for Rhode Island. This one has gotten the green light.”

Dollar General is a national chain store based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. It has more than 10,000 stores in 40 states. The company's website say most stores are 7,200 square feet of retail space, carrying 10,000 items.

The store specializes in small communities, mostly towns of fewer than 20,000 people.

“We sell the most respected name brands, the brands people know and love,” MacDonald said. “For us, it is a proposition of value and convenience. The average shopper is in and out of our store in 10 minutes. The key for us is to keep the format small. You don’t park a football field away or have to walk a quarter-mile to get from one end of the store to the other.

"We are a fill-in stop. We aren’t a full service grocery store or a pharmacy. But we tend to be 20 percent cheaper than a full grocery store and 40 percent cheaper than a pharmacy.”

The store expects to employ six to 10 people with a mixture of full- and part-time work, MacDonald said.

The company was formed in 1939 in Scottsville, Kentucky, by J.L. Turner and his son, Cal Turner Sr. J.L, Turner was functionally illiterate, with only a third-grade education, according to the company history.

“We really get involved in the community,” MacDonald said. “Literacy is our favored cause. We give grants in our communities for libraries and schools with literacy programs.”

The company gave out $5 million in 700 grants during its last disbursal, MacDonald said.

The building that will be Dollar General has been vacant for several years. The building's owner, Stephen Lewinstein, took out a building permit in November to remove the front canopy and make repairs to the exterior.

The building is empty with the walls stripped to cinderblock and floor tiles pulled up. There is no schedule yet for work to begin, MacDonald said.